Heracles no Eikou II: Titan no Metsubou

Review by CyosisCMR

"Good Game But Some Very Weak Moments"

I just recently got into playing the Glory of Heracles series, starting with the third game released on the Super Famicon. After playing through that game I was really interested in playing the original games released for the Famicon. The first game would seem to still not have a full translation so I was not able to really play through it... So the second game was plan B on the agenda and very fortunately there is a full translation! Unfortunately, the game is not as "glorious" as the third game in the series but still a fun JRPG in the fashion of Dragon Quest.

Story: Unfortunately the game somewhat lacks a truly coherent storyline. You start out in Nana as a boy (you name yourself) living with his Grandmother. Monsters are attacking the land from the orders of some "dark lord". The queen sends you out on a journey to get the three Zuis so you can create the Chaos Axe and stop the onslaught of monsters. On the way you get three other party members. A cowardly centaur, a soulless living statue, and finally Heracles himself (the only one that can wield the Chaos Axe).

The storyline is very loosely based on certain stories in Greek mythology. Frankly, I thought the story was pretty weak. This was not uncommon for RPGs for the NES (minus a hand full of games) but I was hoping for something with a little more coherency. The storyline itself is actually pretty linear making the game fairly simple to progress without too much stress. Also, not having played the first game, I don't know if this is a continuation from the first one or not... As well, I felt the ending was a bit weak compared to its sequel.
Score: 5/10

Graphics: The graphics are actually not that bad. They are somewhat typical to, let's say Dragon Quest 2 or 3, so they are not quite original. But they are not in the least disappointing. Your sprite looks like he is constantly on the move as with most RPGs of its time. The in town, dungeon, overhead graphics are pretty nice looking with some decent color palettes. The world itself is actually well designed even if there is not a whole lot to it. Dungeons are very well designed and will prove to be quite challenging as the game progresses as many of the dungeons become straight out mazes making for some very difficult gaming due to the high amount of random encounters by enemies.

The battle graphics are quite basic looking pretty much just like a DQ game. Battles are performed from a first person perspective, although you do see your characters sprites in the battle. You know what's going on in the battle due to text explaining everything. When enemies attack or are being attacked they blink to let you know. The battle background is black. As you can tell it's nothing new and at times does get a little bit repetitive. Once again, this is excusable due to the time the game was released.
Score: 7/10

Gameplay: The game controls like a standard JRPG. Absolutely nothing new (although still quite fun). You play on an overhead world and traverse from town to town, dungeon to dungeon all the while fighting enemies, gaining levels and money. You learn spells by gaining levels. The nifty and sometimes confusing thing with spells is that all spells, essentially, have made up names forcing you to do one of two things. Either use the spell in battle to see what it does or two, look up the spells in a FAQ. I did the latter.

Battles in this game are generally not difficult. Most of the time you won't have to use spells to beat enemies (most spells don't work right anyway), so all you'll have to do is hack away and heal up when need be. There are a number of boss fights as well and these prove usually to be far more difficult than the regular enemy. Boss fights will take a lot of strategy actually since most bosses (especially in the second half of the game) will use strong magic that could easily kill the inexperienced. Sometimes you will have to explore a dungeon thoroughly to find a specific item to help beat the boss. Example: before fighting Medusa you will have to find the Mirror Shield so she won't turn you to stone.

Traveling in the game is, as well, standard fare. You will travel by foot for the most part but there are other sources of travel not uncommon to RPG's of this era. You will travel by boat about halfway through the game. To make it through the Ice Field you will have to travel by Sled with dogs pulling your way. Instead of your common airship you will travel by Pegasus. It's all, for the most part, common fare.
Score: 8/10

Music: From what I can tell from the two Glory of Heracles games that I have played the music writing is very solid. From the start of the game to the final boss music you will never get tired of the soundtrack. Having said that though, there is not a whole lot of music in the game. Towns have two soundtracks, one for the "cities" and one for the "villages". The overhead music is the same throughout the game but it is probably the best sounding music in the game so the repetition of it never really got old. Battles only have two pieces of music. All fights (including almost all boss battles) have the same music. This tune wasn't bad but wasn't my favorite and did get a little old. The only fights in the game that didn't share this music was the two fights with the lead villain at the end of the game. This piece of music was excellent and was great for the final battle. Dungeons seem to have several pieces of music, all of which were excellent and made the dungeon crawling element of the game very entertaining.
Score: 9/10

Overall: The game is a lot of fun but somewhat disappointing because of its weak ending. Also, the game is certainly nothing new in the NES department for RPG's. Nevertheless though, it is a worthy game to play and for fans of JRPG's it is certainly a must play.
Score:7/10